Category Archives: Ebook Development

Last week, an article titled "The White Paper Is Not Dead" appeared in the Huffington Post. It was an interview with John Fox, founder of Venture Marketing, and it defended the use of white papers as an effective marketing technique. Indeed, somanyarticles have asked "are white papers dead" that it could seem like their usefulness has ended.

However, most of these articles conclude that white papers can be useful for generating leads and getting conversions when done right. But they fail to answer one glaring question: if your white paper is a long piece of content in PDF format, why not just call it an ebook?

There are seemingly endless ways to make your content stand out when it comes to content marketing. Maybe you can provide a unique perspective or voice that others in your industry don't have. Maybe your content will get attention because it's fun and entertaining.

The most basic possibility, however, is that people will link and share your content because it's the best source for a certain topic. This is where content marketers are using the term "skyscraper content." While the concept is extremely broad, it could be hugely beneficial for gaining exposure and establishing yourself as an authority.

Last week, Microsoft introduced Sway, a content aggregation program that allows users to develop visually appealing, interactive presentations without requiring any knowledge of web design. Sway makes it possible to easily combine photos, video, audio and text into content that's automatically arranged into a format which the user can then make adjustments to.

The program will be the first new app added to the Microsoft Office Suite in about 10 years, but it may need to define its purpose more clearly before it catches on.

In a move that has been rumored about for some time, Amazon has finally thrown its hat into the smartphone ring. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the new device today at a Seattle press conference, and the new phone promises some very innovative features.

As far as basic specs go, the Fire Phone is Android-based with a 4.7-inch high-definition display. It boasts a 13-megapixel camera and a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor. Purchasing the phone will also get you one free year of Amazon's premier membership program, Amazon Prime. People who already have Prime can get their next year free.

If you're populating your website or blog with images, it's a good idea to first make sure you're doing so legally. Just because you find an image on the web through a Google, Bing or Yahoo image search doesn't mean that that image is free for you to use.

Many of the images you find through an image search are not protected by copyrights, and actually can be used freely. Up until now, however, there hasn't been an easy way to identify which images are protected and which are free to use. Bing is looking to change that with its new feature, "Search by License."